live from Washington DC if the queue covering in forum DC 2018 brought to you by in for and welcome back here on the cube inform 2018 we're live in Washington DC continuing our day to coverage here on the cube along with de Ville on tape I'm John Wallace it's now a pleasure as well to welcome Eric Noren to the cube is the managing director of the CFO and enterprise value consulting at Accenture good morning Eric Harry a good morning to see you guys glad to have you with us we appreciate the time yeah let's talk about first the relationship assurance your and in for I know you've had you've been elsewhere right doing some other things with other folks and have kind of migrated back into the in four fold what led to that and what kind of successes are you having well so we're very excited about the partnership with with in for this is kind of like the really the second year for us right now as we go into the second year the first year was really driven from the partnership and the work that we do at Koch Industries and that that client experience kind of led us into a variety of different paths of partnership with with in for we've been doing work with with in for products for many years but we just our alliances just kind of blossomed in this past year into a variety of different areas focusing on the cloud suite financials focusing on GT Nexus in the supply chain space and now we're getting more and more excited about bursts and we're also getting very excited about the the whole the way the infor OS platform is just blossoming and and being tailored to a variety different industries and you've got you've got three offerings right if I remember right that you're taking out that you're taking to your client base as we speak once you give us a rundown of what you're up to well in our practice we have in our CFO and enterprise value practice we have an offering that's all around digital finance that's one of our biggest areas and that's really all just about the intersection of platform technology and how it enables the next generation of the finance function for the CFO so that we cloud that could also include things like you know automation and artificial intelligence applied to the finance function we see in our recent research here that CFO role as pivoting really not to be not really as focused on the books and records and being the controllers right but the CFOs role is now becoming more focused on being the digital steward the value architect of the enterprise and so the core of Finance is being digitized so that the transaction handling can be done more in an automated and efficient way and then freeing up the talent to focus on analytics and value-add and that really allows the CFO to focus more on driving insights into the business driving growth and what we call enterprise value so I totally agree the role of the CFO is transforming quite dramatically you know long gone in my view anyway are the days of CFO equals bean-counter this is a little there's a controller for that and no bean counter by the way is not a pejorative I run a business and I'm happy when people are counting those beans but it's not the CFO's role they're really transforming you see some Rockstar CFOs certainly in the tech industry like Scarpelli Tom sweet to just name a couple right reporting still matters compliance still matters but the CFO is taking a much more strategic role I'm really interested in this this this digitization of finance double-click on that yeah what does that specifically mean maybe you could give us some examples well I think that a couple things one is cloud right also I would say one thing is how transaction handling is moving from paper into all aspects of touchless transaction handling one is that harnessing the data to for transaction so it's touchless between vendors and customers and how that just flows through the system in a more digital way less paper more digital more touchless integration more automation right and then with that platform enabling things like artificial intelligence or machine learning being applied to these patterns of transaction handling so it can do the compliance checking in the reconciliation and so that the accountants right are enabling these algorithms to check things and don't have to do it themselves right but then there's also this whole context of of digital sort of process automation that that yields new ways of working you know new ways of looking at efficiency in terms of how and where the work is done right there was a view of like shared services and how we enable a digital operating model where there is there's work that can be done you know in with business unit intimacy and then there's work that can be done from other locations but then enabled by digital technology that's common and standardized right in a common platform that's also scalable and flexible and so putting all those things together is what we call digital finance I love this conversation and Accenture is like the best of the best you guys gets deep industry expertise and domain expertise I'm interested in Eric and in what the organizational structure looks like because when we talk about digital you're talking about data yeah and when you talking about data you're talking about monetization in some way shape or form not people I think got confused in the early days of big data so we can sell our data and more importantly as how data contributes to the monetization of the company sure and and how you can harness that and invest in that and that's really where the CFO comes in but he or she is not an expert at at digital not an X not a chief data officer or chief digital officer but they are an enabler they got to understand the strategy they got to pay for the strategy and maybe help course-correct it so what are you seeing is the right organizational regime to take advantage of digital well I think it first off it's integrated and it's and it's and it's focused on integration and collaboration for sure I think that there's a role where finance has the the business acumen and the insights to find out where the the story of enterprise value where it is now where it could be relative to the drivers of the business and but what's going on in the industry or the adjacent industries they can take advantage of so it's really all about you know a partnership between you know let's say finance right and let's say bringing in new talent and skills like data scientists and all those kind of you know digital skills and integrating it into finance so that it could be more accessible and then and then translate it into opportunities for for the business units so so a couple examples could be just one just getting a when we say monetization I think there's two things one is cost reduction where could you just use data to just understand the business in all aspects of where costs and how they're behaving and just being farm Warp know precise about where there are opportunities to reduce costs increase your bottom line right and that that in of those is value then there's the other side on you know revenue up left where there could be optimization of pricing optimization of your discounting strategy all those things that get into maintaining and improving your revenue without any additional cost of goods sold correct cost of sales right exactly that's a great example rights right your your operating structures it stays the same they're getting more leverage out of that that's writing and then there's other things where there's adjacent opportunities in to just gain market share right just to say well where there's opportunities with and really what we want to say is that by applying all this intelligence it's focused on really the theme is focused on customer experiences like what are the customer experiences that could be enabled with digital digital technologies in a seamless touchless way that are just differentiating the company you know in the market customers are and I think the world is changing its disrupting so the ways in which customers are interacting with businesses are expecting these kind of digital experiences very much inspired by a lot of the digital native companies they're out there in the market so the traditional companies that don't have those experience need to catch up and invest in these kind of customer experiences give me an example I mean how about expectations and and so let's say for example if you're a telco alright and you've got experiences that are about paying your bill or experiences have to do with services that you need by going to a call center all right now maybe you can have you know the traditional route of talking to someone or maybe there's a way you can go between the information and the channels that you have between your telephone your the mobile app between the website being able to talk to someone and having chat bots and the mix and how you coordinate all those different experiences so that that the customer can come in and get their questions answered in a very efficient way in some cases the the chat BOTS and the kind of sophistication that they can have to to to address the customers question right on the spot in a very timely way helps them just say I got my question solved and I'm happy with that experience right same thing with having information about I'm getting a you know service supply to my home how do I know that I'm having that same certainty of the service supply to the home much like the certainty that consumers are experiencing kind of like when they get an uber and they're like hey I know that the car is only five minutes away and it's coming and I have that certainty of an experience now that's being applied to other kind of customer experience it's a lot of situation I'm there at three things so first was saved money you know example RP a jerk something to help you drop money to the bottom line just cutting out mundane tasks yeah the top the top line operating leverage and that's around analytics may be optimizing pricing was the example you gave now the third I'll call Tam expansion which is which is really gaining share you leveraging your digital strategy to maybe try to be an incumbent disruptor just disrupt before you get disrupted now that last one has more risk associated with it because there are there are additional cost you've got other cost of goods sold you go to market cost but the reward could be you know huge these are the conversations is a great great proxy for the conversations that are going on with your clients yeah absolutely and I think that look you know there's the the market is going through changes constant disruption is coming in different forms whether it be through technology or other kind of industry integrations and you know they're different in the different we I specialize and more the communications me in technology industry alright and so those those are where I spend most of my time and and what's going on in communications right now and what's going on with communications and media is a quite interesting time on how content and distribution of content is changing and the way that the next generation of consumers are going to think about you know consuming media and how advertising is distributed we're going through a tremendous transformation in that space and all the companies are kind of racing to to be have that advantage of how they connect with the consumers at scale in a seamless connected way so that they have that that that ability to continue to serve them in new and innovative ways so let's talk about them so you said comms and media are we talking telecoms yeah okay and then tech industry is in IT technical yeah I mean tech suppliers tech suppliers yes girls just go and and companies like novo those kind of companies that are in that those guys are pretty forward-thinking in terms of technology adoption oh absolutely okay the telco business is really interesting right now though absolutely hardened infrastructures they get over the top suppliers coming in the cost per per bit is going down but they can't charge more you know this you know very well yeah they're going through some really radical transformation at the same time they have a huge opportunity with content yes you see and people make some moves yes absolutely about what's going on in that business a little bit more well you know there was the recent you know Comcast just an acquisition of sky is quite Norway we got 18 t going through the Time Warner thing and then you have so that's a Content play that I think is just frees up some opportunities for for companies like Comcast and AT&T you know to start really servicing their customers and a new profound way you know to be able to say it could be you know content that is suited to different demographics and to get those consumers at scale not only to keep them you know comfortable with the and and very delighted if you will with the kind of wireless service and flexibility they have with that but then to be able to see all the range of content that it could be consuming all of which is coming back to those companies as data as the consumers are watching all this content and having better control visibility of all the different patterns that they're seeing in the use of this content so they can then in turn shape different kinds of programming and shape different kinds of advertising programs that are tailored to those demographics and there's an it there's an underlying infrastructure transformation that's going on so it's something as basic as you know things like network function virtualization not to get too geeky out here but I'm trying to to make their their infrastructure more agile so they can compete with the OTT suppliers and they're trying to vertically integrate as content yes Rogers absolutely in this whole next wave of 5g is is a huge thing that's gonna come to us and that's that's a big disruption that's just starting and will happen in the next three to five years that will level be coming due so everybody's trying to get digital right yeah yeah yo that you talk to but do you do you when you go beneath that to the organization it's harder to get people you know to actually move do you get do you see a sense of complacency of people saying well you know not we're doing pretty well in our industry or I'll be retired before this all happens I mean how do you compel well I think that I mean that does exist in certain industries and certain types of companies you know I think that's the whole point about talent right and I think when we come back and look at talent is really when we think about change not only is the technology changing but the the talent that's available not only in the finance function but in all parts of an enterprise the the the the next generation of folks that are going into the workforce are just coming from a different place in terms of how they use technology in their lifestyle but how they want to apply to their as a customer but then how they want to do it as an employee and so for when we have that conversation about well what is the future going to look like a lot of it will come down to well what does digital mean as an experience for your consumer and your customer but also what does it mean for the talent and and we believe that look talent is a critical asset in every and every company it's the biggest asset that we have in a center right so how do we inspire and have folks have been enabled to use digital technologies to have that entrepreneurial you know sort of platform to use these digitally native tools that's really the key and I think that any kind of you know CFO that's like thinking about betting on the future that talent is very much a part of that stories it's definitely about technology is very important it's an enabler it's a platform however it's the talent that will be using the platform to take those info sites and drive growth in the wild card is data all right that's the new oh yeah absolutely I mean when a variable in the equation yeah this data putting data at the sort of score of your organization and having the talent that knows how they'll exploit your day that's right and I think it's like when I think about talent there's I mean there's different specializations right but I think the talent is really about the collaboration you see people who are able to work with other different cross functions and say well how do we how do we build and find this together how do we discover where the opportunity the insight is together right and you know there's you know there's differences between you know stuff which I said like the you know things that are known and we just optimized what we have and then there's going into the new areas right that I haven't been discovered yet and I think that the thing about the the the talent that's curious you know we like the way to think about like okay curious about what could be or what's out there and using data not as a as a hurdle but harnessing the power of data to go into these areas and start exploring and using all those different tools to explore where could we go and one of the things it's doing is it's not about you know we talked about analytics and some of the tools that are out there it's not about necessarily precision in this moment it's about direction of where you can go and exploring and continuing to find the facts that support investment it's your point I mean the the tools and the tech aren't the hard part it's the it's the unknown it's the people right you know the processes around that right getting everybody on the same page to collaborate it's like old dogs new tricks I mean I mean so yeah never simplifying but you you are trying to bring new tricks yeah to folks and there's a generational awareness that you're the difference between the people they have coming up and where they said that's right and we think that look you know by bringing the fresh new talent in to the organization that and of itself has has the team operating and working differently because not only they have new tools but there's new a new way of talent being integrated you know new talent and experienced talent you know seeing how these things come together to wither with a mandate again on superior business outcomes like let's go after these prizes it's worth it to get this right to make these investments because if we get it right there's an opportunity to grow revenue to grow to grow profitably to gain market share right so there's a there's a it's hard okay there's culture change and change this is normal okay digital transformation is not an easy thing to do all companies go through you know different things but it's worth it in the end yeah and it enforced talked a lot at this show about new new ways to work what I call new ways to and I think there's some substance there yeah absolutely Eric thank you and for the record we are always open to new tricks we do like new tricks okay good it'd be good to have you with us okay my pleasure guys Norman ceinture back with more on the key we're live here in Washington DC [Music]